


Ginger and Sage

by collectingnames



Series: Fjorclay Week [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Bathing, Caduceus Clay Deserves Nice Things, Care, Comfort, Established Relationship, Healing the healer, M/M, Nonsexual Nudity, Post-Battle, Referenced past character death, Tender - Freeform, fjorclay week, lay on hands, nonsexual intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2020-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23705737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/collectingnames/pseuds/collectingnames
Summary: Fjord sits Caduceus down for some tlc post-battle
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Series: Fjorclay Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1710829
Comments: 10
Kudos: 121





	Ginger and Sage

**Author's Note:**

> SO originally this was going to be the two of them absolutely wrecking everything in a fight but I know myself well enough to know that I would spend way too much time doing all the math and basically running a test fight so I just took the post-battle approach. Regardless, have some fun with Caduceus and Fjord being Tender™. I'd also like to say that I don't actually know if ginger and sage soap would smell any good, it just seemed like a good combo in my head. (~Behold! The thrilling adventures of Fjord! Watch as he buys soap!~)
> 
> Edit: went back and fixed some verb tense inconsistencies

Fjord sits down on a fallen log, tries to anyway, the rotting bark giving way underneath him a little. His ears are still ringing but on the whole, he’s not in too bad a shape, a little sore and winded but all in all doing okay. Caduceus, Caleb, and Beau, on the other hand, are worse for wear, to be generous about it. Beau is to be expected, she fights up close and personal and Caleb is 'squishy' especially when he has to use polymorph to change into 'Capeleb' and stay up a little longer. Caduceus is a little bit of a surprise though. Monster bits are clumped up in his hair and bruises are already starting to fade in on his skin, one of them borderline a black eye, it’s only a centimeter away from it at most. His breathing is deep and labored, probably some combination of simply being winded and an injury. Probably got flung into something, or one of the creatures got a solid blow to the chest.

He takes a second to let his muscles go lax, head hung while he finishes catching his breath.

The familiar texture of one of Caduceus's leather gloves spreads across his cheek, "Do you need healing?"

He turns his head and holds onto his wrist, pressing a kiss to Caduceus's palm. A flicker of that sunset-reflecting-off-the-ocean warmth courses out from his chest to where the two of them meet, healing and opening up his senses just enough to get a read on how badly he’s hurt. He winces at the empathetic echo of pain that hits but turns back to look up at him, seemingly unfazed. Caduceus's face doesn't betray anything, but he’s definitely more hurt than he seems.

"Thanks, I'm alright Caddy," he catches sight of a glob of unidentifiable goop clinging to his jacket and brushes it off where it lands on the ground with a surprisingly loud squelch for how small it is.

"Oh, thank you."

"Not a problem," he puts a hand down on the log for support as he goes to pull himself up to his feet. It turns out to be just the wrong amount and distribution of force and it made the dead wood splinter under him, falling hand-first onto his unarmored shoulder.

There's some snickering from the group but his side is far more bruised than his pride. Beau, suddenly looking a lot better courtesy of Jester, strides up and snatches him up by the front of his armor and pulls him back up to his feet before anyone else can react.

“Come on lovebirds, we need to get back,” she’s already stretching the residual soreness from the wounds Jester healed and retrieving her throwing stars, the ones she can find anyway.

“Caleb-?” Veth asks.

He wipes off his mouth on the back of the hand that clutches a now-empty potion bottle, “No, no, I’m sorry. I do not have enough energy for a teleportation circle.”

“Well shit,” Veth mumbles to herself.

“There’s a road off in the distance, we can just follow it to town, get some rest, go home in the morning,” Caduceus suggests.

“I can ask Essek to take us home!” Jester pops into the conversation.

Caleb hesitates, “It is getting on in the day, I do not know if he would still be able to cast such a powerful spell and besides, we need to actually start making a habit of warning people if we need transportation.”

“ _Right_ ,” Beau exchanges a look with Jester, “right, it’s totally not that you blew up some components in your own face when he tried to teach you a new spell last week.”

“I am not so petty as to keep all of us from getting home just because I made a fool of myself,” he replies calmly but turning a bright, embarrassed red.

“Come on, let’s just find an inn, and with any luck a bath,” Fjord makes his way towards the road.

“Do you want me to use Find the Path?” Jester follows after, the others coming after her.

“We have a path.”

“But we don’t know where it goes.”

“Maps!” Veth shouts.

“Maps!” Beau repeats.

Soon there’s an entire chant going of about half the party just chanting ‘maps’ while he digs through his bag trying to find the right one. He hands the correct one off to Caleb and just lingers next to Caduceus while the others all crowd around Caleb and the map. He casually puts an arm around his waist.

“Took some pretty nasty hits, are you doing okay?” He asks softly.

“Nothing some rest won’t take care of,” he puts more of his weight onto his staff.

“I can help with that.”

“It’s okay, you’re healing’s pretty limited, you should conserve it.”

Jester shouts from the roadside before he can reply, “Come on! This way!”

“Coming,” Caduceus calls back, joining the others before Fjord can try and insist on some healing.

It’s a smaller village somewhere smack dab in the center between Asarius, Bazzoxan, and Rosohna, a place propped up by the travelers that come through. Though as a result, he spotted a surprising variety of stalls on their walk to the inn. And that impression seems to be right considering the trouble they have getting two rooms to split between them. The first inn is a wash and they end up wandering into another one on the other side of the market.

Fjord dumps his bag at the foot of the bed and starts removing the heavier pieces of his armor, the studded skirt, breastplate, and pauldron draped over the chair, “There was a stall or two that caught my eye on the way in, I’m gonna go check them out real quick. Do you need anything?”

Caduceus just shakes his head no and sits down on the edge of the bed before he starts pulling off his gloves and boots, “Go ‘head.”

He leans in and cups the back of his head in one hand to bring him in for a quick kiss, “Love you.”

A sleepy smile creeps across his face, “Mmm, love you too.”

He pops out into the street and draws his cloak around him to ward off the evening chill. Finding the stall again is fairly easy, its sign sticks out almost into the street and he recognizes the swirling script. The stall itself holds a few displays of bar after bar of soap, tiny paper labels describe their various scents. Most of them are just straightforward descriptions of what they are ‘lemongrass’, ‘daisy’, etc but one or two have _vague_ labels that don’t so much describe a scent as much as they describe a feeling. A light green soap labeled ‘afternoon picnic’ throws him for a loop.

The shopkeeper clears her throat, “Looking for anything in particular?”

“Ah, ya know just, soap,” he keeps looking through the labels, acutely aware of how he can’t really smell any of them. Despite his very brief death having happened a few months ago, there are still a few lingering side effects of his revivification that haven’t quite faded away yet, for one his senses are significantly dulled. It’s strange, Caduceus never mentioned that about the time underneath Asarius.

She just kind of stares at him while he paws through the displays, “Is it a gift?”

He nods yes while he continues to intently study the display.

“What kind of scents do they like?”

“Um,” he scowls while he thinks hard on it, trying to recall, and for lack of a better word, “not floral, he’s kind of, herbal?”

She grabs one bar and puts it in his hand, it’s a sort of earthy orange-yellow color and he can see bits of leaves in it, “Ginger and sage.”

“Oh, thank you,” he tries sniffing it but doesn’t quite manage to make anything out. He takes a second to ponder it as if he knows enough about nice soap to really judge it but he doesn’t see any reason to doubt her judgment. “Thanks, I’ll take it.”

She wraps it up in paper while he sets the coin down, “It’s a new blend, if you come by again you’ll have to let me know how he likes it.”

When he makes it back to the room at the inn he finds Caduceus slumped in a tangle of gangly limbs on the bed, still dressed in his grimy road clothes. It almost feels unfair to wake him up, almost. Almost.

He gently shakes his shoulder and speaks in a soft voice, “Hey, Caddy, wake up.”

“Mm? What is it?” His frumpled hair and mildly disoriented expression are reminiscent of a cat that’s been interrupted from its nap.

“Let’s get cleaned up. We’re just gonna feel extra shitty if we fall asleep with all this gunk still on us.

Without warning, Caduceus uses his shoulder to push himself up off the bed onto his feet, “Alright.”

Luckily the washroom is unoccupied when they enter. It’s slightly steamy and he can see how the dampness has soaked into the wood. Caduceus casually starts to disrobe when Fjord goes to draw a bath. The water isn’t steaming or anything but sticking a finger in proves that it’s a notch above lukewarm. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know any spells to help with that but it’ll have to do. He stops when Caduceus’s large hand goes to rest on top of his head and starts toying with his hair absentmindedly.

“Do you mind if I-?” He starts his question.

Fjord gets up to grab one of the stools on either side of the door, “I insist.”

There’s a slight sloshing noise as Caduceus slowly lowers himself into the water, careful as he can to keep from making too much of a mess. Luckily the fit isn’t too comical. Probably by merit of the town’s proximity to Asarius, bugbears, orcs, and firbolgs are all of comparable heights, even if firbolgs certainly trend the tallest of the three. Caduceus’s knees aren’t pressed to his chest but he definitely can’t stretch his legs, not unless he props his feet up on the edge. He breathes out a long sigh through his nose and slumps forward. With his hair draped over one shoulder, he can properly see all of the dark bruises littering his back. 

Fjord strips down to his smalls, sets the stool down behind the tub with the soap and a clean rag in hand, “You’re hurt.”

“We’re all hurt.”

He snatches his hand back when Caduceus hisses in a breath through his teeth at his ghosting touch over one of the bruises, “And they healed up properly. I offered to heal you and you said no.”

“Don’t scold me,” he shifts down a little, submerging more of his back.

“I’m not scolding you. I’m just worried.”

“‘Worried,’” he repeats in scare quotes.

“Yes, _worried_ , you don’t heal yourself enough,” he loosely coils a lock of Caduceus’s hair around a finger and leans forward to talk into his ear. “Just let me take care of you, please?”

Caduceus slumps forward, steadily relaxing into the soothing feeling of warm water on aching muscles, presenting his back in an unspoken gesture of permission. 

He tears off the paper wrapping and soaks the rag, “Thank you.”

He kisses a bruise and watches it rapidly fade away. Caduceus was right earlier, he can’t do that much in terms of healing but something this small is well within his abilities. He washes each one as they disappear. Small sighs flit out of Caduceus as the dull pain fades underneath Fjord’s lips.

“Cover your face, I’m gonna wash your hair,” he soaks the cloth again until it gets oversaturated, water dripping back into the tub.

He puts his hands up to almost his hairline to shield his eyes, “Go ahead.”

He takes a section of his hair in one hand and takes the rag and soap to it, working out the tangles and dirt. The dirty water coursing down his back is slightly pink, though if it’s from the lichen that he treats his hair with or blood is unclear. Probably the former though, as far as he can tell, Caduceus didn’t take any blows to the head. It takes forever to get through the immense length of his hair. He hadn’t taken out any of the braids before falling asleep earlier so he keeps having to undo them, unraveling more hair. By the time he’s gotten through half of his hair, his hands have gone pruney with soapy water. 

But he finally finishes running the soap through and rinsing it out, carefully working out the knots and tangles with his fingers. Satisfied with his work he slumps forward on the stool, throwing his arms around Caduceus’s shoulders and tucking his face into the crook of his neck. The wet hair now plastered against his front doesn’t bother him, he’s just going to take a bath himself once Caduceus finishes anyway.

He feels Caduceus’s contented rumble more than he sees the smile that comes with it, “You doing okay there, Sunshine?”

“Just peachy,” he mumbles into his neck.

Caduceus starts to toy with his hair, going damp just from the sheer humidity of the room, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

He rests his head on top of his own, “You were pretty impressive earlier.”

“You weren’t so bad yourself.”

“Now if only smiting things wasn’t so messy,” he teases.

"Not much I can do about that one."

"Hmm, then I guess you're just gonna have to do this every time you make a mess of me then."

"Is that supposed to be a promise or a threat?" Fjord smirks.

"Whichever one makes it more tempting," he shifts and starts to get out of the tub.

Fjord pulls him down a little to kiss him as he’s getting dressed, “Promise it is then. I’m gonna wash up but if you can go ahead and push the beds together?”

“Sure thing.”

It doesn’t take long for him to drain and refill the tub and scrub himself down. Some tension finally slips away as he gets rid of the dried sweat, traces of monster bits, and dust from the road. His considerably shorter hair cuts down a good chunk of time and before long he’s back in their room. The beds are pushed together, and all of their stuff moved against the wall

Caduceus looks up from braiding his hair when he hears Fjord come in, “Hey.”

Fjord goes ahead and flops down in bed next to where Caduceus is sitting, “Hey.”

As he’s drifting off he feels warm, safe, and the scent of ginger washes over him.


End file.
